CAA Software Rollout

Background

The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) was about to embark on a large-scale project to upgrade some of their Microsoft Office systems. With over a thousand employees to train, across a range of locations including London, Gatwick and Edinburgh, the Project Manager and Change Manager for the rollout were keen to create a training programme that could meet the diverse needs of their workforce.

An original proposal had been made to provide all training online, however with consistent feedback from users requesting face to face sessions, CAA approached Underscore Training, to develop a bespoke classroom based training programme to run parallel with the online training.

Solution

Working in partnership with stakeholders at CAA, Underscore Training developed a series of half-day workshops. These covered the use of Office 2016, alongside Skype and OneNote which was a completely new program for the business. Initially eight days training was scheduled, however following feedback from employees and invested stakeholders, additional workshops were scheduled. Around 20 days of training were delivered in total, over double the eight days originally agreed.

Challenges

Some employees had not received training on any Office products at all, while others required training on only certain aspects. To accommodate this varying level of need, the workshops were designed as short 3-hour sessions on specific topics, with employees able to attend those they viewed as necessary. To address the challenge of a geographically dispersed workforce, workshops were delivered at sites in London, Gatwick and Edinburgh.

Feedback and Outcomes

The feedback from the sessions has been really positive, people found the sessions very useful, enjoyed the bite-size approach, and felt that the training helped increase productivity.

Michelle Koloko, Business Change Manager at CAA, shared her views on working with Underscore Training:

“We wanted the training to be of the highest professional standard and felt that the level of professionalism that Underscore would bring was necessary. They did not disappoint. The process has been very collaborative, efficient, and worry-free. I’ve been really surprised and impressed by how quickly the team developed things like the course outlines, and first drafts of materials. It’s been very impressive.”

Delegate comments were also very positive:

“It helped to unlock the potential of Office 2016 in a way that will increase my effectiveness and efficiency. The Skype session was the most useful and enlightening one. Overall the session really helped me to understand Office 2016, and to have more confidence to explore its enormous potential to assist more efficient and effective ways of working.”

‘We spend all day using this software and in my experience most of us muddle through half the time. The trainer gave us “differences” training and tips on using the software, plus a from-scratch introduction to OneNote and Skype which most of us hadn’t used’.

“I would definitely recommend the course to others as I found it very informative and tips and tricks very handy to use on a day to day basis. I found the session a great learning curve as I have learnt new things I can use on a day to day basis which are simple and make working a lot easier. I found the whole course useful.”

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